There was a junior high school near my home and a big wall in front of the junior high school.
I enjoyed to throw a ball to and catch it bounced back from the wall, with the image of National High School Baseball Championship like,
"Heian High School leads 1-0 with no runners in the bottom of the ninth inning. Towards the final batter, Genda, Heian High School Ace, threw the third ball! The batter hits the ball and it goes to shortstop! The shortstop catch and throw it to first! Three out! That's the game!!"
One day in the 5th grade of elementary school, when I was throwing a ball to the wall as usual, an old man who I had never seen appeared from the junior high school.
"I'll hit fungoes for you!"
With that said, the fungoes of unknown old man that I met on the spot began without mercy.
It was on concrete, on public roads.
It was a fungo on the road.
By the way, "Fungo" in baseball is "Practice to catch the ball hit by the batter" and is usually done on the soil ground, not on the public road.
Here, "the person who hits balls = the unknown old man" and "the person who catch balls = me".
After a short time,
"Okay! Next, I'm hitting fungoes with hard balls!! It's okay if you look at balls well!!!",
I heard words that doubted my ears.
Until then, he hit fungoes with soft balls.
A soft ball is made of "rubber", but a hard ball is made by winding many threads around a "rubber core" and it is as hard as stone.
This unknown old man said he would hit fungoes with hard balls that were as hard as stones.
It was on concrete, on public roads. haha
After having the greatest horror experience for me to catch fungoes with hard balls on concrete, the unknown man said,
"You did your best! I'm Ebisuya and a security guard at this junior high school. I'm hitting fungoes for you again!", and then he went back to junior high school.
This was my first encounter with Mr. Ebisuya.
to be continued...
